


the one who comes back home

by besidemethewholedamntime



Series: it's only goodbye for a little while [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Happy Ending, Mild Angst, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Season 6 Speculation, canon compliant to 5x22, the reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 21:15:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16048700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/besidemethewholedamntime/pseuds/besidemethewholedamntime
Summary: '“I was coming to get you,” he tells her, looking at her with such confusion. She has even missed that, that look of utter puzzlement on his face.“I know you were.” She puts her hand out to touch his cheek. It’s cool but warming. Alive. “But we came to get you, instead.”'After months of searching, they finally find Fitz. The reunion and the after. A season 6 speculation.





	the one who comes back home

**Author's Note:**

> oh my gosh I finally finished it! I've been wanting to write this for months and I never knew how and oh my goshh it's finally here! I did it! 
> 
> I'm really quite proud of this. It's been my baby for the past week and to see it grow from five words to this many has been so hard but so worth it. I adore it, and I hope you do, too! 
> 
> This might not be the only version of this moment I write. In fact, it probably won't be. So fear not! If it doesn't go the way you expect then let me know and I might be able to write you one you'd like to see (once I finish my forensics lab work and my anatomy essay, of course!) 
> 
> The song is from '500 Miles' by the Proclaimers. Cheesy? Absolutely, but it just fits, don't you think? If you haven't listened to it, one of my favourite versions is probably the one from 'Sunshine on Leith'. I definitely recommend this. 
> 
> I hope you like this as much as I do, but if not it's alright! Thank you for getting this far!

> _If I go out, well I know I'm gonna be_
> 
> _I'm gonna be the one who's going home with you_
> 
> _When I come home, well I know I'm gonna be_
> 
> _I'm gonna be the one who comes back home to you_

 

 

It, of course, happens when she isn’t there.

Daisy comes to find her. Jemma hears her before she sees her; heavy, thumping footfalls running down the corridors of the Zephyr. Jemma’s only left the control room for fifteen minutes. She needed to stretch her legs, take a walk, iron out the kinks that have formed in her back.

Daisy catches up to her. Panting, hands on her knees, hunched over, she says sentences that trip over themselves. “Come, quick. We got him. We found him. Come on!”

The sentences make no sense to Jemma. She isn’t convinced this isn’t a dream for she has waited to hear them for so long. When she does nothing Daisy sighs, exasperated, and grabs her arm, pulling her along behind her.

The thump of their footfalls matches the _thump thump_ of her heart. She only left for fifteen minutes. It can’t have been that simple. If it was, she would have left long ago. Her heart hammers so wildly she cannot breathe, cannot think. She just lets Daisy pull her along, not even looking, and it’s a miracle she doesn’t trip up.

In the control room everyone looks nervously pleased, as if they’re worried what she might think. Jemma doesn’t even know what she thinks. Doesn’t know what she can. All she has thought of is finding him, and, being careful not to think too much, she has never allowed herself to think of what she would feel when she did.

But first she must be sure. She must be one-hundred percent. Though she knows there is no such thing, she must have this assurance.

“Is it true?”

Mack is standing like the Director he has been this entire time. It’s admirable, how he has taken to the role. With a look at Elena, he takes a deep breath and nods. “Yeah. Contact made as of ten minutes ago. It’s his ship.”

 _Ten minutes._ In a flash she is zero to one-hundred. “Ten minutes? And you didn’t think to come and get me? I deserved to know, first!”

It’s such a trivial thing, for it would take a while to board, anyway. But she _deserved_ to know. Every moment for months she has only thought of this. Has only lived for this. Has only been able to somehow ‘move on’ for this. This belongs to her and she had a right.

“It was my call,” the Director tells her, calmly but with an eyebrow raised.

“No, it was mine.” Daisy takes her place to Mack’s left, jerking her thumb to Elena at Mack’s right. “And Yoyo’s. We had to be sure it was them.”

Their sympathy, in the beginning, was touching. Now it feels suffocating and she wants Fitz and she wants to go home.

She would like to be angry but can’t find it within herself because on the command screen there is a picture of a ship. There is a radio channel open. There is such an ache within her to pick up the microphone and speak but her throat is ever so dry.

“We can we go in?” She asks, looking at the screen and nothing else.

It’s Mack who answers. Lately he has all the answers. She knows he needs it, knows it makes the guilt easier to bear. “We’re working on getting all synced up. Should only be another twenty minutes or so.”

“Why don’t you go get that case you got for him?” Daisy makes a gentle suggestion. “By the time you do that we should be ready to go?”

“I’ll come with you,” Elena offers. “Unless, of course, you would rather be alone?”

Jemma still doesn’t look away from the screen. “It’s alright,” she says, in a voice that betrays her brain is only thinking of one thing. “You can come. I want to make sure everything is…” she trails off, looking at how little space separates them now, “everything is perfect for him.”

She lets herself be led away once more, this time footsteps soft, heart beating wildly. It wants him, she knows. It wants him so badly.

 _Soon._ She says inwardly, calming herself. She doesn’t know if it’s an ominous thing or not. _Soon._

-x-

“Agent Jemma Simmons,” Enoch greets her after they have boarded. “Welcome.”

She knows he won’t be here, that these kinds of things take time, but out of habit she strains her neck to see the empty corridor behind him. Fitz’s name is on her lips, in her throat. She wants to call it, but only if he’ll answer.

“Is he…?”

“He is fine. I have programmed the cryochamber to thaw but, as you know, it will take time. Your arrival was unexpected and hurrying the process could be dangerous.”

Jemma swallows. The sound seems to bounce around her head. _No more danger._ “I understand, but is it possible…” She stops, swallows, tries again. “Could I sit with him?”

“Of course, you can.” Enoch tilts his head as if something about her is curious, but he doesn’t comment on it. She is sure she looks a state. Her hair needs redone and there are undoubtedly circles the size of teabags under her eyes. She could go to a mirror, fix herself for their reunion. She could, but she doesn’t want to. Right now, she wants to see him. She won’t believe anybody until she sees him.

“Please, follow me, Agent Simmons.” Enoch turns as walks and she follows, dragging a suitcase with one hand. Others had offered to come but she had waved them away. She loves them, but she has seen them all for hours on end in the past few months. Now there’s only one face she wants to see, and she would like to be alone.

The walk is silent. Their steps clang on the metal, the suitcase making a loud noise that she cringes away from. Eventually Enoch stops outside a door, and steps aside to let her pass.

“Here he is. It will be a few hours, yet, before thawing is complete.”

The way he makes it sound, as though Fitz is a piece of meat, makes her shudder. _He is a person_ she wants to scream. _He was my husband. He is a man. He is the second chance I thought I would never have._

“It’s alright,” she says, trying to be bright. “I have some things to do and it will be nice just to sit with him again.”

It will be more than nice. Everything will finally be alright.

“Of course. The ship is quite small, so should you require anything we will be easy to locate,” Enoch tells her, nodding once before walking away.

Taking a deep breath, Jemma walks into the room.

She’s not sure what she was expecting. Something grander, perhaps, than what is there. It’s a small room, not as big as she thought it would be. Inside sits only one thing, the cryochamber. It calls to her, an invisible tie pulling her towards what she’s wanted for so long. She hangs back, scared of what she’ll see. Scared of what she won’t.

Her wedding ring burns a hole in the pocket of her jeans and she thinks maybe she should have left it somewhere else. She doesn’t want to explain, not now, not today. All she wants is Fitz.

But something keeps tugging her insistently towards the cryochamber and so Jemma finally manages to command her feet to move and her lungs to breathe and she inches forward slowly, delaying the inevitable. What if he’s not there? What if he’s not alright? What if this whole thing is some gigantic trick played upon them by the cosmos? It wouldn’t be unsurprising.

With wobbling lips and shuddery breaths, she leans to look at the small window of the cryochamber. All her breath is exhaled in a rush. Oh, there he is. Her heart beats wildly in her chest; in joy, in anticipation, she doesn’t know. All she knows is that Fitz is here, alive, and they are together again.

 _This time_ , she thinks, _they will not tear us apart. They will have to kill me before I ever let you out of my sight again._

“Hi, Fitz,” she says softly, stroking a thumb over the window. He looks asleep. Her mind harks back to a time on the Zephyr, a body laid out on a table and covered in a sheet. The dead never look asleep. They look like what they are.

“I’ve missed you.” Missed him? She has yearned for him for months, every cell in her body straining towards him but not finding him. She has cried and screamed and longed for him in a way that made her sick. It wasn’t fair. She had it all and then she had nothing, and it just wasn’t _fair._

“I’ve brought you some things, for when you wake up. There’s no hurry, of course. Take all the time you need. I’ll be here.” Then, softer: “From now on, I’ll always be here.”

-x-

Jemma starts off by unpacking the suitcase.

It’s an arbitrary task, she’s aware, because they won’t be in this room for long, but her hands are restless, and she needs something she can keep in order, something she can arrange and make it nice.

She lays his clothes out, letting her fingers trail too long on the soft fabric that still smells of _him._ A bright forest and ‘ _I think that you are perfect’_ plays in her head but she shakes them out. That was then, and this is now. To keep thinking of things that cannot be will drive her insane.

She must make a new life. She must forget all that has come before now. This is the only way she can bear it. She must put it in a box in her mind and she must bury it, never letting it see the light of day.

The wedding ring shifts uncomfortably in her pocket, reminding her of its presence.

 _It meant something,_ it tells her. _You still married Fitz. Not this one but you still married Fitz. That cannot be erased, Jemma. You can’t make it mean nothing when it still means everything._

Her husband. Buried. Gone. Nothing to remember him, dedicate him anywhere because he isn’t dead. He’s right here. But she’s seen the body and held his hand and knows that it’s just not the truth.

“I’ll be you won’t believe it,” she tells him, not looking at the cryochamber. “I’ll tell you everything and you won’t believe it.”

It should be easier than this. The two sides of the equation come together. She lost a Fitz and found a Fitz. Harmony restored.

Except she lost one and gained one and the equation is balanced, but she knows what that means. That, really, if you look at it, the equation being balanced means she’s left with a grand total of nothing.

-x-

It’s different to how she thought it would be.

She thought it would be calm, contained. She thought, because she had time, she would be able to keep her emotions in check because she was sure of the eventual outcome.

It happens differently to that.

As soon as the cryochamber announces it’s done with the thaw and the pressure releases and the doors open, Jemma flies towards Fitz with a speed that she would have deemed impossible of herself.

Her head makes contact with his chest before his eyes are properly open.

“Wha-” She hears his confused, groggy voice. “Jemma?”

He says her name like it’s something holy. Something he would worship if he could.

His arms come around her, holding her tight to him and she begins to sob into his chest. She should be checking him, making sure he’s alright after being frozen and thawed quicker than planned, but the tears come thicker and faster and Fitz holds her tighter to him and this is it, all she’s needed.

“Fitz,” she manages to choke out. “Oh, Fitz.” She repeats it like a prayer, like it will save her. His heart beats wildly underneath her ears, good and strong and oh God, so _alive_ she could listen to it on loop forever.

“Jemma? You’re here?” Understandably confused, he tries to push her back to see her face, but she doesn’t want to leave the safety of his chest, of his arms just yet and so she stubbornly stays put. He doesn’t force her, still holds her, but the worry is more evident in his tone. “What’s happened? Did I miss it?”

_You missed everything and nothing all at the same time. Where to even begin to explain it to you._

Jemma pulls back, looks up into his eyes and feels her knees go week. So blue, she would gladly drown in them. It’s been so _long_ since she has seen them.

“It’s not the future,” she says slowly, tasting salt in her words. “Well, only a few months.”

“I was coming to get you,” he tells her, looking at her with such confusion. She has even missed that, that look of utter puzzlement on his face.

“I know you were.” She puts her hand out to touch his cheek. It’s cool but warming. Alive. “But we came to get you, instead.”

“What happened?” his voice is a whisper, afraid of the answer. How fitting. She’s afraid to give it.

Jemma rests her forehead against his. Every cell in her body relaxes at the touch. _Home_ they think. W _e are finally home._ “Later,” she whispers into that small space, letting the words fill it up. “I’ll tell you all about it. Later.”

“Okay,” he whispers, brushing her lips with his. She can taste salt and has no idea who it belongs to. This feeling, of not knowing where he ends, and she begins, is dizzying.

“I’m never leaving your side again,” he murmurs, and she laughs, pulling tight against him.

“No.” She captures his lips again with hers. They’re warm, soft, utterly Fitz. Nothing feels impossible anymore. “Never again.”

-x-

She checks Fitz over once she can bear for her skin to break contact with his. Shining a light in his eyes, checking his pulse, asking him questions such as ‘ _do you remember what happened before you woke up here?’_. He goes along with each one, soothing her worries. Knowing that she needs this, that maybe he does, too, he says nothing about it.

Jemma knows that the othe… in the future, he turned up with a marriage proposal on his lips and the conviction that they were unstoppable in his brain. This part would be nice, but she doesn’t hold out any miracles for it. Perhaps she has used up the last of her miracles on finding him in the first place. If this is the case, she will not complain. If she gets to keep this, keep him with her, then she will never complain of anything ever again.

“Aw, I’m freezing,” he jokes, blowing on his hands while Jemma puts away her things.

She stills, turns around slowly. The grin that was on his lips falls away like snow melting off a windowsill. “Too soon?”

“Perhaps just a tad.”

“Sorry, Jemma.”

“Don’t be.” She offers him a weak smile, but one she hopes is real. “Anyway, do you want to get changed? I brought some things for you.”

“Yeah, that would be great. Thanks.” His eyes slide away and look to the floor.  “Then maybe, after, you can tell me what happened?”

“Okay,” she sighs. He is owed answers. It’s only fair. She just wanted time to feel the relief first.

Jemma goes to turn away while he gets changes, but he only laughs at her and cocks his head like he doesn’t quite have her all figured out yet.

“Why are you…?” Then he seems to realise something and his cheeks flush bright red. “Unless you don’t want…”

“Ugh, Fitz,” she says, rolling her eyes in spite of herself. After everything she has just said, how can he still think she’d want to leave now. Secretly, however, she has missed this. She stays where she is, widening her eyes for dramatic effect. “There. Is this better?”

“Much.” His laugh is full of relief and she feels even closer to salvation.

-x-

Jemma doesn’t get a chance to tell Fitz about what’s happened while he’s been asleep as the next thing she knows, Mack is coming to look for them.

“Good to see you, Turbo,” he says, while pulling Fitz into a hug. “Yeah, it’s really good to see you.”

“Uh, thanks.” Fitz looks over to Jemma for an explanation and, when none is found on her face, she sees him resign himself to getting an answer later. “It’s good to see you, too.”

Mack lets go and grins at him for a moment, as though he can’t quite believe they’ve done it. “Listen, I hate to cut this too short but we’re gonna be heading back to the Zephyr and back to Earth as soon as we can. Lotta work needs doing.”

“Yes, of course.” She nods, excited at the prospect of blue sky above them and solid ground beneath her feet. “We won’t be a moment.”

“Great,” Mack nods at them both, smiling again before disappearing.

“Mack in charge of the mission?” Fitz jerks his thumb in the direction Mack has walked off in.

So much is going to hurt him. There’s really no way to do it gently. “Fitz,” she begins, voice deceptively soft, “Mack’s in charge of SHIELD.”

The words land on Fitz. She watches as he does the calculations in his head. They spit out an answer he doesn’t want, and she sees him run it again and again until eventually he is forced to ask the question. “What happened to Coulson?”

“Later,” she tells him, reaching for his hand. Mostly smooth and soft but hard in the familiar places. The gesture comforts her as much as it is meant to comfort him. “I’ll explain all of it when we’re back in the Zephyr.”

“Okay,” he says quietly, looking rather pale. She wishes the responsibility didn’t have to land on her shoulders, but then she realises she couldn’t stomach anybody else telling him.

“We’re together,” she whispers to him, beginning to lead him from the room. If they’re together then they can handle anything. She has all the proof she needs of that.

-x-

They have dinner together on the Zephyr as it begins to chart its way home.

Jemma can see the questions in Fitz’s eyes as he sees the empty places at the table, but she keeps her head down and doesn’t acknowledge them, trying to make the happiness and relief stretch out for as long as she is able.

Daisy tries to make jokes, Elena comments on how she’s glad he’s back because she has some ideas for updates to her arms. Jemma looks up in alarm, watches Fitz’s eyes widen as he realises he has no clue what she’s on about.

“Eh, your arms?” He rubs the back of his neck, looking painfully confused.

“Oh,” Elena says, looking around the table and realising that she’s made a mistake. “I forgot you don’t know about that, yet.”

Jemma feels his eyes slide to her and she looks down at what Mack has made them with the same intensity she uses for her experiments.

“Certainly, got a lot to catch up on,” he remarks.

Certainly, there is. Jemma tries to focus on her food but finds she really doesn’t want to eat anymore.

-x-

“Do you want to shower?” She asks him, when dinner is finished, and they are alone in what’s now the room for the both of them. “It’s not an ideal one but it does the trick.”

“Jemma,” he says slowly, sitting down on her – their – bed. He has that soft look in his eyes, the one that means there’s a conversation that needs to be had.

“The water can get a bit cold sometimes but if you stand there long enough then it will eventually get warm again.” Jemma doesn’t look at him, can’t meet his eyes. She busies herself with re-unpacking the suitcase. It’s become a lifeline to her.

She hears him sigh, resign himself to _not now._ She knows she’s being unfair, but the words can’t quite come to her throat, not just yet.

“A shower sounds good.”

“Everything you need is in there, already.”

“Good.” Jemma looks up. Fitz has a funny look on his face, almost expectant but then he just ducks his head slightly and goes to leave.

Suddenly, a panic like no other grips her. For a moment it’s hard to breathe. It’s silly, she knows it is, knows it’s completely irrational but she can’t let him out of her sight.

“Wait, Fitz, I’ll come with you.”

“I know where the shower is, Jemma.”

“I know, I know but-” and she gives him an imploring look, begging him to understand. What he thinks the situation is is different to what it actually is. And she might not be able to explain it now, but he has to understand, and he has to indulge her even just for this once.

His lips turn upwards and he holds out his hand to her, perhaps remembering a time when he was too afraid to leave her side. Back then, when her nightmares were filled with blue and the sand didn’t wash out of her hair for weeks.

Back when that was the worst separation she’d known.

It’s funny, how she almost wishes she could go back.

-x-

The water is stone cold all the way through but standing there with Fitz’s heartbeat right next to hers, she feels warm.

-x-

They sit on their bed in towels that have seen better days.

“Jemma,” Fitz says, taking her hands within his. He looks at them then up at her. “Can I please have some answers now?”

And so, she gives them.

It comes out in discombobulated phrases. Some she stops and starts, and some run on for so long she forgets to breathe. Wringing her hands, fingers twisting all over each other, Jemma cannot meet his eyes.

When she’s done, when it’s over, she risks a glance at his shell-shocked face and says, “Fitz?”

All that is returned is a strangled noise.

“Oh, please, Fitz. Say something.”

“I really… I don’t…” he looks up at her, jaw slack, eyes wide with… _hurt?_ “I don’t even know what to say.”

“Something,” she says through her tears, feeling her mouth wobble. “ _Please.”_

“I’m not even me,” he says helplessly. “I’m not who I thought I was, I’m just- I – I missed a whole _life.”_

“Only a few weeks,” Jemma tries, equally as helpless. It’s just a fact, just the truth, but it’s a weapon in her mouth.

Fitz looks at her like the wind has been knocked out of him. She hears him exhale in a rush, thinks she can hear his heart break. “Just a few weeks?” His voice is too quiet. “Jemma, I missed my own wedding.”

And he did. Except not really. He hasn’t even proposed to her yet. That was him, but it was somebody else.

“You don’t love me.” His voice is distressed, he sounds like a boy. She can’t bear it. “You love _him.”_

“Don’t be silly,” she says automatically. “You are him, Fitz. You are him and he was you, just at two different points in the timeline. I have loved you at all points. I love you now.”

“Yeah, well that’s not much better, Jemma. ‘Cause from what you told me he did some things that I really don’t fancy myself capable of.”

“There were _reasons,_ for all those things.”

He looks at her, incredulous. He stands up, goes to the suitcase to find some unworn clothes. It’s a couple of paces away, on the other side of a boxy room but her heart jumps into overdrive all the same.

“Doesn’t make it alright.”

Ugh. Jemma could stamp her feet if she were so inclined. “I _know_ that,” she grinds out. “but, really, there is no point reminiscing about the past, now, is there? This is your second chance, to do it all differently.”

“Maybe,” Fitz acknowledges. He looks so tired that she wants only to tuck him into bed and let him sleep while she watches over him, guarding against all things.

They aren’t really fighting, she knows that. They’re just weary of the same things being thrown at them over and over again and, right now, they can only take their frustrations out on each other.

He gets changed quickly and she does the same, their backs to each other. Tears sting Jemma’s eyes. She can hear him, he’s there. The response has become reflexive, something she can’t help even if she tries.

They climb into bed. The silence is suffocating but his presence is intoxicating. It’s reassuring, she supposes, that they don’t even think about separating.

Jemma turns off the light and the room is dark, and she cannot see him but she can hear him breathing and that is almost enough.

He’s always known her too well, however, and blindly he reaches for her hand across the empty chasm of bedsheets and she holds on and dares the universe to make her let go.

-x-

Somehow, some way, they find themselves wrapped around each other in the middle.

Jemma startles awake with her head on Fitz’s chest. For a moment she has no idea who’s arms are wrapped around her and whose heartbeat thuds like a lullaby in her ear but then immediately she relaxes because of course it’s Fitz. Who else could it ever be?

It’s still simulated night. No reason to get up yet. No need to leave this haven here, in amongst thin bedsheets and all the things left unsaid.

She feels him awaken, his body tense then relax. His arms hold her tighter, pressing her closer. Even though she knows its impossibility, she is surprised they haven’t just become one.

“I love you,” he whispers, his thumb gliding up and down her arm. His breath is warm against her scalp. So warm and so alive. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” she replies. “More than anything.”

“I know we still have a lot to work out, but I want to be here, with you. I want to work it all out, with you.”

 _With you._ They are still a team. There had been a moment when she wasn’t quite sure.

“We’ll do it better this time,” she promises him. “You’ll see.”

This time she will see what she missed those times before. This time he won’t keep secrets locked away in his own head. This is their reset, the do-over. A chance.

“We’ll be better,” he affirms, kissing her hair. This is as close to heaven as she can fathom. “The best us we can be.”

 _The best us we can be._ This is how she knows that this is it, this is where it ends. They are them, now.

Together. Unstoppable. Invincible.

At last.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you ever so much for reading! Please feel free to leave kudos/comments. Please feel free not to. Either way, I hope you have a wonderful day!


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